Hayley stood and helped me up, and I followed her down the stairs. Blake was only a few steps behind me. I heard more laughter from Hayley as she wrapped her arms around him. “Blake.”
“Hey, girl. Great to see you.” He squeezed her tightly.
At the base of the stairs I stopped in surprise again. Sure enough, there was Eddie. Son of a bitch. “Eddie.” I extended my hand. He shook it firmly. I glanced at the other armed man.
“Danny, this is Silas.” Eddie said.
“The bomber?”
Silas nodded. “Pleasure.” We also shook hands.
“Likewise,” I said. “I’ve got one more coming.”
Silas nodded, and Keena joined us a minute later. There were two more people in the cellar, a beautiful African woman and a girl who appeared to be roughly Hayley’s age. Hayley made the formal introductions—Lazzo’s wife, Cera and Captain Baker’s daughter, Flynn.
“Flynn,” Hayley said. “This is Boy Wonder.”
I held my hand out to Flynn but she hugged me instead. I gave my condolences to her for the loss of her brother. I couldn’t imagine what she’d been through—couldn’t imagine what it would be like to watch your father shoot your brother.
My focus then turned to Eddie. “How are you alive, my man? We saw a hundred troops surround you, all shooting at you.”
“Rubber bullets. Hurt like hell but didn’t kill me.”
“But why did they need you alive?”
“Insurance.”
“Insurance?” I asked. “For?”
“Forgive me, but these are just assumptions. I believe my brother was working with Commander Boli to secure documents or information from you…” I saw Hayley nodding. Eddie continued. “In exchange for keeping me alive. And Cera, too. I believe the commander made promises he didn’t plan to keep. But he needed to get Lazzo here. If I was dead, Lazzo don’t believe him or come.”
“So Lazzo knew you were alive?” I was trying to piece it all together.
“He was told, yes.”
“But you knew nothing about this? About him kidnapping Hayley to try to save you? About their entire plan?”
“I did not. I just learned of it. I am not okay with his decisions. Lazzo was a better man than this.”
I could see Blake didn’t believe Eddie. Hayley sensed the same. “He’s telling the truth,” she said to Blake, then turned to me. “Lazzo told me he couldn’t tell Eddie, that Eddie would have reacted and tried to save their families—that they all probably would have been killed then.”
It made sense, even if Eddie clearly didn’t like the reasoning. “Lazzo tells you this?” he asked.
Hayley nodded.
“So, Eddie, why are you here?” I turned back to him.
“To stop you. To stop Lazzo. You cannot give Qi Jia what they want.”
I wanted to tell him I hadn’t ever been planning to, but I knew that wasn’t exactly the truth.
Blake lied for me. “He wasn’t going to. He didn’t even bring the real book. Danny knew if he couldn’t rescue Hayley, they’d both be dead anyway. He wasn’t going to give up everyone else with him.”
Now I couldn’t look at Blake. Fortunately what he’d said made perfect sense. I never should have brought the real book. Everyone was quiet, each person lost in his or her own train of thoughts. I finally broke the silence. “So that’s why you blew up the building? To stop Lazzo?”
“At first we thought Lazzo did it,” Blake added.
“No, it wasn’t Lazzo,” Eddie answered. “We don’t know where Lazzo is. I’m afraid he—” Eddie stopped and looked at Cera. “We believe he’s—”
Cera’s head was down. “Dead.” She finished the sentence for him.
Interesting.
“I need to say something,” Hayley interrupted. “Someone has to say it. Lazzo made a mistake—a whole series of them, in fact. But everything he was trying to do he was doing for the people he loved. Yes, he killed my boyfriend. He also kidnapped me. But he was lost. I could have escaped any time I wanted to when I was on the carrier, and every day since. Lazzo didn’t know what he was doing, but he thought the only way to save you and your families, was to get Danny to bring the information to the commander.” No one interrupted her or said anything when she paused.
“Obviously,” she continued. “It wasn’t going to work, but I truly believe he was doing what any of us would have done—anything he could—to save the people he loved.”
“Hayley.” I reached out for her hand.
She pushed mine away. “Wait, Danny, I’m not finished. Cera… Eddie… I’m sorry for your loss—I am—but while I can rationalize what Lazzo did to me, there are three prisoners back in Kauai who will be killed if the commander orders it. That would also be Lazzo’s fault, and there are an awful lot of people who won’t be so quick to forgive him for that.”
“Four prisoners,” I corrected.
“Four?” Hayley asked. “Who is the fourth?”
“No idea,” Blake replied.
“You don’t know?” Hayley repeated.
“We don’t know.” I confirmed Blake’s response.
Eddie pounded his fist against the wall. He turned to me. “Danny, I can’t believe it. I am sorry. Lazzo deserves no respect for this—no forgiveness.”
“Eddie, I’ll admit, I came here to kill Lazzo for what he did. But now I’m with Hayley. I can understand his lack of alternatives and the resulting desperation. Seriously, I was willing to do anything to save my sister.” I glanced at Blake. “Literally anything.”
“That does not make it right,” Eddie growled. “He was weak and foolish to trust Boli…even if it was to try to save me, Cera… any of us. Hayley tells us you saved his life, and this is how he repays you?”
“Eddie, put it this way. If he’d have told us what was going on, we wouldn’t have helped him. We probably would have kicked him off the island and maybe even thrown him in prison. Then you’d be dead… both of you.” Eddie looked at Cera and I continued. “Anyway, now it’s done. We can discuss it more later but for now, let’s put it behind us. In a few hours this place will be crawling with troops and covered by every imaginable form of radar.”
I glanced up at the ceiling and the little black box with the red light.
“Infrared blocker?” I asked Silas. He nodded. Nice. I looked at the others. “We need to get out of here—like now. Eddie, how did you even get here?” I asked.
He pointed at Silas. “This man. He helped us escape. He flied us here yesterday.”
“Silas, you can fly?” Blake asked. Silas nodded. “That’s good. We might need that.”
“Where’s your plane?” I asked.
“It’s only a four-passenger,” Eddie answered. “But it’s about four miles south of here. We landed on a highway and parked it in a barn.”
Four passenger? Crap. That isn’t going to work.
Hayley read my mind. “There’s a chance they didn’t find ours, Danny.” Everyone turned to her. “Lazzo, Flynn, and I found a smokejumping base about twenty-five miles west of here. We concealed the plane behind some old planes and fire equipment and tried to lure the enemy paratroopers away from there. Our C-130 doesn’t have enough fuel to get back to the carrier, but if it’s still there, it at least gives us an option out. We can all fit in that easily.”
“We’ll never make it twenty-five miles before dawn,” Keena pointed out.
She was right. The attack on that building would draw Qi Jia’s undivided attention to this area. I had been expecting drones by now but understood their absence to merely mean they were planning tomorrow’s search. They’d be hitting it hard in the morning. Even if we could make it to the hangar, the skies would be full of aircraft and drones. We’d never be able to take off and would be shot down immediately if we tried.